The Lies Within
by wikiaddicted723
Summary: "It's as if something were missing, a gaping hole in her chest that was once whole, as if she'd been robbed of something dear, something precious, and she doesn't understand" Olivia feels an inexplicable loss. Post S3 Finale. Final chapter UP!
1. Ghost Feelings

A/N: Well, who else has had their brains liquefied a la No – Brainer after that FINALE? I did, and so this little drabble came to life, I might make a series of them, if my muse consents to engage in a negotiation, but he/she can be _such _a bitch sometimes. Sigh. Please remember to review once you have read, criticism makes one a better writer, and thanks for your attention.

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><p>Olivia feels different. She does not know how to call it, weird has left her vocabulary long ago, it is her life and everything around her, it exists and yet it doesn't. She wonders if maybe strange could cut it. Doubts it.<p>

She lacks the words to describe it, this feeling that's been following her around ever since the creation of The Bridge, like a shadow that seeks to engulf her, choke the breath out of her lungs. It's as if something were missing, a gaping whole in her chest that was once whole, as if she'd been robbed of something dear, something precious, and she doesn't understand because the last time she felt remotely similar was years ago, when John died and this craziness began. And yet not even then had she felt this wrong, this…incomplete. She guesses understanding is irrelevant at this point, in this warped sense of reality that she has slowly acquired, she rationalizes that understanding was never really a part of her job anyway.

It is on moments like this, when she's alone in her 'temporary' accommodations in a Massive Dynamic owned hotel (they no longer feel temporary), unable to lull herself to sleep that _it_ manages to press down on her, evade her defenses, cave a hole under the very foundations of her barriers, that she wonders if she too is going crazy. She's found herself cleaning tears that come unbidden to her eyes in the privacy of her room more than once now, without reason; has become intimate with Jack, and Jim, and sometimes also with old Johnny boy, and the burning sensation on the back of her throat is nothing compared to the emptiness and the inexplicable, unreasonable heartache that she seeks to numb in their company.

She's not really surprised when she starts seeing him (whomever he is, if he's not just a simple conjuration of her deeply disturbed imagination), out of the corner of her eye as he lies beside her in bed, an arm wrapped around her waist while his breath grazes the back of her neck, walking just a step behind her in the streets, sitting across her on her breakfast table, deep blue eyes staring at her with an emotion she can't bring herself to name, a small smile on his face as she tries to ignore his nonexistent presence. He doesn't speak, he never does, he's simply _there_ and she knows (even if she's not ready to consciously accept it) in the back of her mind that his company diminishes the pain she hasn't been able to explain, like a balm to her wounds. She feels…content in his proximity, fuller maybe, mildly disappointed every time she turns to find him gone. She briefly considers asking Walter, her Walter, if there might be a reason for this phenomenon; his genius is, after all, knowledgeable on mostly everything, especially madness and its derivate products. Simple hallucinations (even if she can see him, feel him, smell him, taste him at times, she knows that is all he is) should be simple to explain. But she refrains, fearing confirmation of her assessment and what it might mean to her job, her life, realizing that they're both one and the same to her, and that she can't have one without the other; The Universes, cruel and hard and sometimes also more beautiful that she could possibly imagine, need her.

So she lies in a bed that's starting to feel comfortable, in a hotel room that has begun to become her reluctant home and basks in the comfortable peacefulness of the imaginary weight of his arm around her, a long – fingered hand splayed on her stomach as he spoons behind her, the heat of his body bringing her into a catatonic state, neither here nor there, as she feels his lips press into the back of her head. She thinks that it may well be that she's destined to be alone, to die for her job, her world, but as long as she has enough imagination to evoke him, feel his constant, reassuring presence with her she knows she can endure it. She was once told that if anyone could survive this, whatever this was, it would be her and just for tonight, she's inclined to believe it. It is what she does best after all, picking up the pieces of broken things, putting them in something resembling order in the chaotic miasma of her world.

It no longer matters that he's not really there because, like the voice in the back of her mind (that she believes to be his, even if she has never heard him speak) always tells her: reality, and everything the concept encases, is just a matter of perception. It no longer matters because he is a part of her, an intrinsic cornerstone of her emotional wellbeing, someone she can rely upon (and it fits that she has never had anyone to rely on but herself) when the panorama is gray and grim.

He exists, and yet he doesn't.


	2. On Paradoxes

A/N: Here comes the second installment of my late night ravings. Because this is exactly what this reads like, to me, as it was done in the middle of a caffeinated night on the threat of death by Plot –Bunny -Bite -induced Rabies. Please remember to review and tell me if I should continue this or call for a pest exterminator, and again, thanks for your attention. XD

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><p>He is trapped in the middle. Somewhere between being and not, between the realms of that which can be seen and the unknown, amidst visions of moments that have been and moments that could be, flashing around him in the quality of defective film, blinking in and out of his perception intermittently. He is in Chaos, he thinks, feels as if he has experienced the very meaning of entropy, that infinite moment of emptiness before casualty and probability give energy meaning, blinking life and time into existence in a simple rearrangement of chance, as basic as a cause and effect exercise, a simple If – Then statement.<p>

It feels as if he's been stripped of his very skin, of all that protects what he is, every barrier, every mask he has ever crafted, and he watches as every naïve preconception of the world he might have had turns to ashes in his mind. He is surrounded by all he once knew, everything that was once his but no longer recognizes him, every street he ever walked, every bed he once lied on, every piece of land he once felt beneath his feet, and he feels omniscient, seeing – feeling – everything at once, and can think of nothing but the memory of his father as he talks in theoreticals and impossibles, his voice firm in it's conviction in the infinite potential of the human brain. He understands now, what he meant, for _he_ feels infinite, unrestricted by the limitations imposed by the necessities of flesh and linear existence, and the wear of Time. But he is not Walter, and he has always rejoiced in mortality, the endless possibilities of choice and the idea of the finite, the necessity for mutability and change. He doesn't like it.

And then there is, of course, _her_.

He wonders if this is what hell feels like. To see, but not be seen; to touch, but not be touched; to know, and not be known; to feel, and not be felt; to remember, and be forgotten. To love her, when she can't know he ever existed.

He is _there_ besides her, walking with her, lying behind her as she sleeps, encasing her in immaterial arms that prickle with the feeling of her soft skin beneath them (he doesn't know if he actually feels _her_, or just the muscle memory of her touch. He doesn't think it matters anymore, he doesn't even _have_ muscles in the purely physical sense) the rhythm of her breathing making him wish he could sleep, and it hurts to know that, even if it looks like it, she does not react to him, and he knows, rationally, that she does not – cannot – know that he's there, cannot feel his fingers skimming over her arm as he tries to play melodies on her flesh (even if she shivers as he does so. He figures she just feels cold.) Cannot see his eyes as he stares at her in the hotel's kitchenette (even if it looks, for a moment, as if she's staring right back at him.) But rationality has done nothing for him when it comes to her, and it certainly doesn't lessen the hurt and the emptiness that settle in the void of his chest, a few centimeters to the left.

He has become little different than an Observer, he thinks ironically, his purpose to watch and witness possibilities and choices that he cannot control or affect. But he is defective, for the Others watch All, hear All, are Everywhere, Anywhere and Nowhere; and he is _here_, and his Purpose is to hear _her_, watch _her_, feel _her_. She is the sun, right there in the center of his universe, him a mere satellite capable of nothing but orbit around her, the very Nature keeping them apart in a jumble of forces in opposition that serve to hold them still, yet in movement.

He did not lie, in that future that no longer exists, when he said that she was _everything_ to him. She does not remember him, and so no one can; she does not feel him, and so he can't feel anything but her; she does not Believe in him, and so he is not Real.

And if this is indeed hell, he thinks, then it is not half as bad as they'd made him assume, for he's got everything he asked for. He willed into existence a universe where there was her, alive and well, and if the cost of this bargain with inevitability is him then he has paid it gladly, and would do so as many times as the choice where presented to him. She lives; and he can always watch. And witness.

He remembers, in the solitude of deferred existence, his father and his late worry of consequences, on the perils of closed circuit - continuums and time – space paradoxes. He would laugh if he could find it in himself to be amused.

_He_ is the Paradox.


	3. The Boundaries of Reality

A/N: Third up, Ladies and Gentlemen. My thanks to all those who have read, hopefully enjoyed, and reviewed this series of drabbles up until this moment. I will hopefully have the next one out sometime this week so do not fret, there is more. Remember to click on the orange button at the end of the page and tell me what you thought of this!

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><p>They say a spark is all it takes to light a fire, a single instant of extreme heat to burn down forests in the blink of an eye. In her mind, no truer statement has ever been made for, in this moment, she <em>burns<em>.

She struggles to keep her breathing steady, manages to silence the sob that threatens to bubble up from her chest at the overwhelming swarm of _feeling _that the simple, faint touch of his calloused fingertips skimming across her body causes, can do nothing to prevent the slight shivers that manage to escape from the fibers of her being as she feels the warm nuzzle of his nose against the back of her neck, praying that he doesn't notice that he has interrupted her sleep with his caress, willing him to believe that she rests still, that he does not affect her. She's afraid he'll disappear if she so much as acknowledges him, has been fighting her desire to touch him back in fear that he'll become immaterial, her hands unable to grasp whatever it is that composes him (she's too tired to reason with herself that he's nothing but a construct of sensations and electrical signals set up by her neuronal impulses), reluctant to lose the warmth that allows her to settle into a dreamless sleep in this foreign accommodations, unwilling to lose the small measure of comfort that his presence instills in her.

She buries her face further into her pillow, her motions as small and smooth as she can make them, keeping the charade up as best as she possibly can as she brings her hands to rest under her head, restraining herself from the unrelenting urge to run her fingers up his forearm and find out if goose bumps erupt on his skin as they do on hers. She doesn't know how she manages to keep herself from stiffening as he tightens his hold on her faintly, pressing himself against her tenderly, bites her lip as she feels the warm press of his lips on her shoulder, his hands tracing the constellations of freckles that mark her skin, left visible in the absence of cloth that comes with wearing a tank top to bed, with a delicacy that makes her feel breakable all of a sudden.

It might be strange that she doesn't worry about going crazy anymore but then, she thinks, what is the point in worrying when she's already sure that she is? If for nothing else but the fact that she has conjured up, in her loneliness, the hallucination of a man that feels real and warm and loving in a quiet, reserved way that makes her long for the moments where he's present, if only to feel the illusion that is his steady breathing against her back as it's rhythm lulls her to sleep.

She hears him breath in slowly as he rests his head on her shoulder, his stubble scraping her skin pleasantly, a sigh escaping his lips.

" 'Livia…" he whispers longingly, slurring her name in a way that feels achingly familiar, but that she cannot place. She can't keep her breath from hitching in surprise then, because it's the first time he's ever spoken to her, and he notices, his hand stopping dead on her arm as his breath rushes out in alarm. She feels him raise himself above her, though she doesn't feel the dip in the bed, as he brings a hand to her chin and turns her head to look at him, making her roll onto her back. She finds out, giving back his piercing blue stare, the depth and detail of her madness. She could lose herself looking into those eyes.

"How long?" he asks softly, his voice rough, and she doesn't need him to clarify, the question crystal clear in his familiar expression, _how long have you been seeing me? _She swallows, building up the courage to admit to herself - and the otherwise empty room - out loud that somewhere along the road she'd lost her certainty on truths that she had taken for granted, lost her grip on reality.

"Months," she says, closing her eyes as she brings her hand to cover his on her face, leaning into his touch when she doesn't feel him disappear between her fingers; her mind must really be something, she thinks, if it can reproduce with such precision the feeling of being loved. She laughs then, the sound choked and strangled in the silence of the room, and even to her own ears it sounds despaired, mad, until her laughter turns to outright sobbing and the tears come again, unbidden.

He turns her on her side, as close to him as he can get her as he hugs her in a comforting embrace, his legs intertwined with hers, her arms under his as she holds onto his shoulders, her head tucked beneath his chin. His scent is earthy, and warm, like the smell of pine needles after rain, and after a while it calms her down enough that she can breath with some semblance of normalcy; he feels this, feels as she relaxes in his arms, and dislodges her head from his chest, looking down at her with worry blatantly etched in his features. He kisses her, presses his lips lightly to hers, soft and yielding in a moment not of passion but comfort, and the feeling is so heart - achingly familiar, and yet so unknown and out of reach that it makes her want to cry all over again. She has never felt this way before.

"What's wrong?" he asks, concerned, brushing the remnants of her tears from her face as she holds him tighter. She can't look at him.

"You're not real." She says, anguished; and just like that, he's gone.

That's the night the nightmares begin.


	4. Wounds of the Soul, Wounds of the Flesh

A/N: Heeheheheheeh…..I'm evil. But don't worry; the next installment will be here shortly. Your reviews make my day, so please remember to contribute your thoughts! Ps. I'm sorry this one was so short, but it felt right to end it there.

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><p>It's raining.<p>

Her shower is warm. And pointless. The constant pelleting of water against her back failing in it's intended purpose of relieving the white –knuckled tension in her strung out muscles as she lies unmoving, her head resting defeated against the cold tiles of the wall as she inhales the steam created by the shock of the warmth against the otherwise chill atmosphere of the room, her eyelids drooping.

It is pointless, but she doesn't need it to be useful, she just needs the distraction, something to do that prevents her from falling asleep in exhaustion yet again (she hasn't been sleeping much).

She has stopped seeing him, feeling him, wonders if it means she's gone farther down the deep end, and finds she doesn't care. She misses his presence, the comfort of dreamless slumber that his imaginary embrace offered; now sleep means nightmares, and she's had damn near enough of those to last her a couple of lifetimes.

It's raining; even though the night is clear, cloudless, warm even, it's raining. It rains somewhere, deep inside herself; in a place she has kept under lock and key for longer than she cares to remember (years, she's _almost _sure. She's rarely sure of anything these days), a place relegated somewhere way down memory lane that seems hazy and unclear even to the scrutiny of a mind as attentive to detail as hers.

She has never had a problem with rain, enjoys it even, at times. She finds it's good weather for remembrance, for peacefully quiet evenings of seating on her couch after a hard day at work, a glass of wine in her hand as she takes slow sips, soft jazz playing in the background in tempo with the rhythm of the water as it hits her windows. But she no longer has neither time nor disposition for banalities of the sort, her life transformed into a complicated thread of horrors unlike anything she could've ever come up with woven into the tapestry of a crumbling universe; she wants to do anything but remember.

Her arm is numb still, almost limp at her side; she can barely feel it, except for the tips of her fingers, the only place that came in contact with The Machine. She had been remiss; she acknowledged, in placing said fingertips against the cold, hard metal of that monstrosity. She still does not understand what had driven her to do so, her mind blank in that infinitesimal instant, the only thing invading her senses the strange pull it seemed to exert over her, like there was something she needed in it.

She doesn't remember blacking out, though Walter assures her it was so; neither does she remember convulsing on the floor, though the tender bump on the back of her head tells her she did. She does remember the adrenaline shot, though, the sting in her abused sternum pulsing relentlessly; the head – splitting migraine isn't helping either.

She begins to feel dizzy all of a sudden, hypersensitive, the sounds around her amplified to hurt her eardrums, and she sees red; she resists the urge to vomit as bone crushing pain shoots through her hip, the feeling that of a ghost wound though she doesn't remember having ever hurt said hip. She huddles on the corner of the shower, her body sliding slowly to the floor, her head between her knees as she feels the world bend and close around her, suffocating her. Soon the numbness extends, her body goes limp, and she feels nothing else.

If anyone were to check on Olivia Dunham right then the accurate medical diagnostic would be brain death, but they would ignore the universal truth: Olivia Dunham cannot be constricted to a medical chart.

Somewhere in the room a cell phone rings, its shrill pitch disrupting the eerie silence that has fallen, permeating the walls and everything between them.

There is no one to answer.


	5. Dissonant Reflections

A/N: This one was not planned. It came to me late at night and bit, simple as that. I'm a tad uncomfortable with it because I'm not that familiar with how this particular character's mind works, how similar and how different to make her, so I hope I didn't make it too OOC. It happened because I wanted to address the outside world a bit, from the perspective of one of our characters, as well as what happened in what I'll call the '(not) Real Worlds' (i.e. Not where Peter is, you'll find out more about that later) when Liv keeled over. It is, again, extremely short. Please Review!

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><p>The one thing Olivia Dunham hates worse than hospitals is Silence.<p>

Silence opens doors, in her mind, that she'd rather forget exist; it gives her time to think, for one (and that is never a good thing), and so she's endeavored throughout her life to diminish the possibilities of silence falling around her, has done so by never staying still, never being alone. She surrounds herself with others, relishes in conversation, loves the easy banter of the workplace, the effortlessness of physical activity. It is, maybe, one of the reasons she loves her job, loves the way the weird and otherwise impossible keep her on her toes, loves to be able to protect defenseless people the way she would've liked to help her sister, and her would – be niece, once. She tries not to think about them much.

She is a creature of impulse and instinct, if not by nature then by choice, and even if she has sometimes erred she's content with how she's made herself.

She was never one for regrets, the what ifs and could bes always far from her mind.

She wonders if the comatose woman lying on the bed would think the same, but then again, she guesses not. This version of her has a sister and a niece, alive and well, but her job consumes her. From what little she has seen of her the past few months she has not heard, in their somewhat uneasy relationship (because even if they do find _some_ affinity, they're so similar and yet so different that it creeps her out. That and the dim but unshakable feeling of unwarranted mistrust on both their parts), anything about friends or relationships, her demeanor quiet, withdrawn and focused to the point of being obsessive. And whilst her own smiles are easy, broad and ever-present, this one's are always small, rare and far between, often shown in irony and a twisted sense of humor. It makes her wonder how two people who are, under all scrutiny, one and the same could become such polar opposites, makes her want to know who it was that broke her so. She doesn't envy this Olivia Dunham.

The ground shakes slightly beneath her feet, the motions quick and barely noticeable, but she's been a Fringe Agent for a while now, and the vague count she keeps in the back of her mind increases. It's been – maybe, math has never been her strength – the eight micro quake in the last ten hours; about as long as the blonde has been like this, she realizes, remembering the unpleasant way they'd found her as they barged into her room after hours of unanswered calls, her limp body pale and ice cold under the chilly water. She notes the rate of growth in their frequency, the times in between growing shorter as intensity increases in exponentials. She runs a hand through her hair then, the red tresses dull in the darkness of the corridor before she turns around and pushes away from the door, the constant beeping of the machines keeping body on the bed alive fading away as she makes her way to the elevators.

Where the other would have, this Olivia Dunham does not look back.


	6. Quantum Theory part 1

A/N: This might be the last update I can make until next week, so I apologize in advance for the heavy stressing on the _Pseudo _portion of the pseudo – science in this drabble. I am no scientist, merely a fan with a bit too much imagination. The Matrix fan in me thinks, after rereading this a couple of times, that Peter channels Morpheus interestingly in here. What say you?

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><p>There are places, both of the mind and not, above and beyond human comprehension. They cannot be measured, cannot be grasped nor explained, and as such their existence is, more often than not, unascertained. It would be best he thinks, after having his consciousness ripped away from the plane of human space continuum, if it were to remain like that. He has deciphered, in this infinite second that encompasses his nonexistence, that some truths should remain unknown, some corners of the mind forever out of reach, for the weight of such truths is vast, their burden more punishment than reward. He has learned most of them, the barriers limiting his intellect gone with his flesh.<p>

Looking into the pools of boundless green of the eyes in front of him, he knows that he'll take whatever punishment the universes – or wherever he is – throw his way. He doesn't regret anything, not anymore, because every path he's taken has led him to her and if that is his crime, he'll gladly burn in hell for it. He figures he already is.

He watches as she disconnects her gaze from his, her eyes examining their ever-changing surroundings in her collected, quiet way, taking them apart piece by piece; her comprehension, limited as it is, exerting itself to the best of her capacities as she tries to understand the where, how, and why of her sudden appearance in this place, every bit the inquisitor he remembers. He misses her. _He misses her_.

"So," she starts quietly, looking back at him, her tone the one he associates with the intimacy of late night conversations, their cooling bodies entangled in sheets and each other, "am I dead?"

He smiles.

"No." he says simply, he'd made sure of that fact. She looks at him, annoyed at his lack of articulation, and his smile widens; he loves to tease her. She huffs, a small smile of recognition etched on her face, letting him know that she understands what he's doing, her shoulders dropping shortly before she straightens herself.

"Where are we then?" she asks, following his game, comfortable in the role of interrogator. It always fit her like a second skin.

"Nowhere," he says, coming closer to her, his hands opening at his sides, palms up, "Everywhere"

She looks at him strangely, her head cocked to the side. She's thinking hard, letting his words sink in.

"How did you get here?" she asks.

"I don't know." He answers truthfully. He is only human after all; he can't have _all_ the answers, " I just had to."

"How did _I_ get here?"

"Ah," he says, smiling again, always moving closer, "what would you say if I told you you're not?"

"I'd ask you to explain," she says, intrigued, "I'd also tell you that you're channeling your father an awful lot." She smiles, he laughs in amusement.

"Maybe." He says, now standing less than a foot from her, making her look up at him slightly, " and then I'd tell you that _you_ are not really here, because you have a physical body back in New York, and that what you see is the interpretation your brain can give to the place where a projection of your consciousness has met mine."

"Ok…now translate that into human, please." She deadpans, wanting him to come closer, to touch her.

"Do you know why you touched The Machine?" He asks then.

"No... I," she says, her brow furrowing in confusion, "I just felt as if I _had_ to, like it was calling to me." He nods.

"It was," he says, taking her hands in his, intertwining his fingers with hers, "or rather, what was left of me in it was."

"What was left of you?"

"Yeah, when I got into the machine I… _interfaced_ with it, a partial merge of my mind with the abilities of the machine, it's how I controlled it, and I guess a residue of that merge jump started your own abilities, though it must have been at a slower pace than what we're used to seeing. The pain was the way your body caught up with the sudden discharge of memories." He's sorry for the pain he'd unwittingly caused her, however brief.

"So you're saying this is somehow all in my head?"

"Not really, but it's a way of putting it," he says trying to explain, "let's just say your mind is not in the same place as your body right now. It's why you fell into a coma, you're protecting yourself."

"How is that even possible? I've never gone anywhere while leaving my body behind before, and why here?"

"Two objects interacting with each other, even though they're separated by a great distance." He tells her, touching her cheek. She looks at him, realization downing on her as she leans into his touch. She's missed him more than she realizes.

"We're quantum entangled?" she asks, her eyebrows shooting up.

_Does it really surprise you? _He asks with his eyes, she shakes her head no. He verbalizes anyway, knowing she needs to hear it.

"Us, and The Machine, yes," he says, "its why you're only here after touching it, it serves as a bridge in more than one way."

"Then why couldn't I remember you, before?" she covers his hand with her own.

"Because you're in a timeline where I don't exist. It's why no one remembers me, but I existed before, _had_ to exist for things to happen the way they did, and part of you recognized that." She nodded, not completely understanding, but knowing where the empty feeling came from at last. _"I'm a part of you that you can't forget_" she remembers her projection of him telling her, so many months ago. Indeed, she couldn't.

"So, I guess the dead one is you then," she says, and the heartbroken look in her eyes is enough to rip him apart a little more.

"No," he says, "You could say I'm…stuck…at a crossroads. I can go anywhere from here, but not on my own." He knows he's gambling here, risking things he's not sure he has to gamble with. But as Walter would say, _either it works…or it doesn't_. And he _misses_ her.

"How can I help?" she asks, immediately catching onto the meaning of his words. She never ceases to amaze him. It's one of the reasons he loves her.

"You," he says, grabbing her face in his hands, "need to remember," he can feel himself fading away. She grabs his forearms, feeling it too. Feeling the way his touch seems lighter, less substantial.

"You need to _believe_." He kisses her forehead, and is gone.

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><p>In a hospital room in the New York City, the beeping of the monitors of a comatose patient raises incessantly, the signals erratic. The lights in the building blink in and out intermittently. The woman's eyes move beneath closed eyelids, her limbs twitching, shaking in a way reminiscent of the tremors running through the city, originating in an underground chamber in Liberty Island, two stories down from the greenish metal of the Statue, hidden from the public eye. The shaking escalates at a small but constant rate. It hasn't stopped in the last three hours, the past minute marking the thirteenth hour since the quaking began. The sun is rising in the horizon.<p>

The twitching of her limbs stop, her heartbeat falling into a regular cadence, its pulse strong. Her eyes open, olive green orbs rimming inky black pupils that contract as light invades them. The woman makes a sound, soft, breathy, and if anyone had been there to hear her they would make of that breath a word.

"_Peter."_

The clock on the wall reads 6:02 AM.


	7. Quantum Theory part 2

A/N: I'm sorry this took so long compared to the rest of the drabbles, but real life called and I had to answer. I hope you enjoy this, though it might have ended up a bit convoluted. One more drabble to go before this is over. (Insert evil cackle)

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><p>The quaking hasn't stopped.<p>

She has to fight with the remnants of drug induced nausea to keep her balance as she stands in the middle of a room that is not in any world she knows, and yet belongs to both. She wears a stolen, pale blue nurse's uniform, the plastic bracelet identifying her as a patient still around her shaky wrist, strands of blonde hair that have fallen out of the haphazard pony tail she'd managed earlier sticking to her sweaty face as she looks up at the Device, its simple, elegant angles of hard, cold metal beckoning to her like an oasis in the desert. She doesn't know how, but staring at it in this empty room, she knows what she has to do.

The agents pounding on the other side of the door wont stop her from bringing him back to her, as she's always done.

They shout at her to come out, to get away from the epicenter, it's too dangerous, they say, but she doesn't listen, she just stares at smooth metallic contraption that looms ahead of her, and walks.

She's heard, or maybe read, somewhere how it is a shame that memory only works backwards. She doubts it. She remembers almost everything, even things she's never done, thoughts she's never had, places she's never been.

She has seen enough in this lifetime (too much if she were to be asked) to be firm in her belief in the transcendence of the mind, the plasticity of the brain and the pliability of the knowledge stored in it. She herself is proof enough. She's lost count of the different memories, the different personas, stored inside her head, of the different lives she vaguely remembers, some with more clarity than others, only two of them her own, both on different timelines that have brought her to the same place, only one of them that she wants to remember, only one that has him in it. She has seen how bleak her life would be without him, has experienced – more that once now – the pull he exerts over her, be it with her consent or without it.

She sometimes wonders how she has kept track of her own experiences, how she has kept herself somewhat sane after all she's been through, wonders if she'd be the same person without having gone through it, if she'd still be here in this place, in this moment, if all that's been done to her were to be erased (she doesn't regret anything, she simply wonders. He would say she thinks too much, but would love her for It.). She knows in her bones that the worlds would still be ending, had things gone differently yet again, she just doubts her part in it, and his.

She also knows _this_ (she doesn't really _know_ much, she just trust her instincts implicitly. They have never failed her.):

Memory encompasses more than the electro – chemical footprint of the places we've been, the thoughts we've allowed ourselves, the feelings that have accompanied each instance. Memory is the proof of our consciousness, the root of our being, it defines us, shapes us in it's ever-changing image; it chips away at the rock we hide ourselves within with borrowed tools, tools that sculpt intricate patterns that shift as the hands that use them, uncovering our truths with every strike, every brush. We are mutable beings, every feather – light touch provoking a change, a ripple in the still water of our souls, a footprint etched into the sand in the shores of our minds, a patch in the tapestry of our lives. His touch was strong enough to cause waves in her, she knows, and build sand castles on her shores. He'd slipped under her very skin, inch by inch, and left a part of him in her that has proved to be her anchor among the raging sea of her messed up life.

In her mind memory is best defined as polydirectional, moving anywhere and everywhere, in the patterns of chaos, following unfathomable structures under the duress of personal choice, it's consequences, and the circumstances they weave around us.

She does not know if she believes in fate.

She's sure she believes in choice, in every person's ability to go different ways, take different paths. She has experienced it, seen it, is presented with the evidence of her belief every time she looks into a face just like own, the red hair the only give away to unknowing onlookers. She just doesn't know if every path eventually leads to the same place. But she has been given the power to change reality, bend it, to make of her world what she chooses, and she has chosen him.

She breaths in deeply, steadying herself as she walks down the centre isle, the white desks on both sides of the facility shaking slightly, some of them already upturned, the lights blinking, the lamps attached to the ceiling undulating slightly.

The electrical hum of The Machine takes up the extent of her hearing and her fingers tingle, her palms feel uncomfortably sweaty as she finally comes to stand at the foot of the massive metallic structure, it's shadow obscuring her face, and she can feel, if she concentrates, the small tendrils of an already formed connection, both organic and inorganic, that calls out to her. She closes her eyes.

She remembers every word, every look, and every touch he ever gave her, their clarity undisputed, like a brand that has remained untouched upon her skin. She pictures him as she saw him, in that place that was neither here nor there, when she'd reached for him, his form slightly insubstantial but _there._ She recalls what he said to her, how part of him had remained in The Machine, and she wills her mind to reach for it, embrace it.

The connection is almost instant, as if he where still standing inside, his arms raised in some sort of twisted Vitruvian tribute, his head thrown back. Her heart pounds in her chest, she feels so close to him, and yet worlds away; she can almost hear his reassurance in her ear, his palm on her shoulder as he grounds her with his touch, and she focuses on the memory of the feeling, letting the warmth spread through her, imagining him as he must be, his consciousness thinly spread out, in between; as he'd said _"everywhere, yet nowhere"._ She imagines the pieces of him regrouping, coming back to the center, right there at the heart of The Machine, as if she where filling in the blanks, drawing him with her mind in the image of her picture – perfect recollection of him.

The Machine groans, a gleam running through the engraved insides of it's panels, it's metal seeming to twist and bend around a flickering orb of light in its center as it elongates, it's shape shifting, rearranging itself, scintillating in constant motion. The bends of the metal seem to shriek, as if it were letting out a blood curling scream, and her eyes shoot open as she brings her hands in contact with the base on which the structure stands, on instinct.

She could never have expected what happens next.


	8. Of Inertia and Immovable Objects

Peter Bishop has always considered himself as being highly resilient where pain is concerned – electrical stimulation not withstanding – not in some egotistical, misogynous appraisal of himself but because experience has taught him so. He has felt pain beyond imagination throughout the life he's witnessed and all its occurrences, both physical and not, but _this_…this is something else.

He feels, in the seemingly endless suspension of existence that encompasses him, as if his muscles were being stretched away from his body, yanked away from bone and ligament inch by inch, his skin burning with heat high enough that if the pain did not blind him, make him nauseous to the point that vomiting seems like relief, he's sure he'd see steam coming off his body; he feels as if he were disintegrating, piece by piece, his very atoms splitting at the seams. He figures the irony lies in that he doesn't really have a body to feel such things, yet he does. He is the epitome of contradiction, the paradigm of the unexplainable, he would scream in frustration if he could find his voice.

But through the haze of the pain he feels something else, a touch, faint, barely there, a caress he thought he'd never receive again, and he reaches out for her as he's sure she's reaching for him; and so he embraces the pain, welcomes it even, because it speaks of her, calls to him with her voice and he knows that there will never be pain too deep, Universes too far, or Time too permanent to keep him away from her (she has always been the only immovable object to detain his unstoppable force). He wants, needs, to see her smile at him again, to feel her real under his hands as he embraces her, holds her face in his hands, her skin warm, soft, firm, _alive._

So when the pain increases, rips him apart in blinding blue light and he's forced to let out a howl that would chill the fires of hell frozen, he thinks of her.

He thinks of home.

The world collapses. Or at least it seems that way to her.

The Machine shakes beneath her fingers, the metal hot enough to burn, though her hands remain untouched, the sounds it emits accelerating, their tempo rushed, frantic, chaotic. The elongated orb at its center seems to solidify and begins shutting the lights out, almost as if it were absorbing them, it's brilliance increasing, drawing the loose items in the room towards it in a swarm of frenzied objects that revolve around it like some aberrant force field, none of them touching her.

Her eyes shoot open of their own accord, the evergreen of her irises disappearing under the inky black depths of pupils that have expanded to impossible diameters, the wavelengths of dying lights flooding her optical nerves to the point of pain as her blood rushes in her ears, the jack - hammering of her heart the only sound in the room besides the pulse the orb seems to be emitting, their cadences synchronized. Her rational mind, the one that would scream at her to run out of the room, has shut down the moment she placed her hands on the smooth surface of the metal before her, her body running on instinct and feeling alone, all coherence relegated to the far reaches of her mind.

She looks up and then, at that very instant when her eyes catch the supernova in the center of the room, it bursts apart in a surge of blue light.

The force of the expansive sound wave emitted by the explosion disrupts the anti - gravitational state the room seems to be immersed in, all suspended objects stopping their constant motion and falling to the ground gracelessly, silence falling down on the room like a thick blanket as it presses down on her. She cant hear anything, a small trickle of blood running down her ears as she raises from the ground on shaky legs, her hurting eyes looking up to a sight that makes her lungs stop functioning, the air catching in her throat.

There he is. His body limp, bent forward as his limbs hang from their metallic harnesses, head down, blood smearing his face were his barely healed cuts have reopened. His eyes open, his foggy gaze connecting immediately with hers, and he emits something similar to a sigh, his breath rattling in the cavity of his chest. The harnesses unlock and his body, weak and unable to hold itself upright falls forward in a heap, crashing to the ground. She's there to catch him, as he's done for her hundreds of times, and she tumbles to the ground with him. She can feel the world growing fuzzier around the edges around her, fading, and knows she's blacking out.

She looks at him, his eyes half closed, and runs her fingers through his longer – than – usual stubble, not minding the smear of blood her fingers cause, basking in the feeling of his weight pressing her into the floor. He smiles, weakly clutching at her as he too fades away in exhaustion, his lips upturned ever so slightly through the full – body ache that consumes him. He's home.

He _smiles_ and she knows, the moment before the world goes out, that she has never seen anything more beautiful.

"_I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge – myth is more potent than history – dreams are more powerful than facts – hope always triumphs over experience – laughter is the cure for grief – love is stronger than death." – Robert Fulghum._

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><p>AN: aaaaaaannnd we're done! This is intended as the last installment of this string of crazy nonsense my mind has been sprouting, courtesy of evil geniuses and two – headed monsters that hold me hanging off a cliff from the ankle as I look down into the gaping void of the months until September. I hope you enjoyed it, and look forward to your opinions of it. I might even consider doing more stuff in this little Meverse I've created. You can even think about it as an alternate timeline. XD


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